WHO PAINTED THE LIGHTS

by Randy Amos

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.     Isa. 5:20

To go through a green light is legal and safe. To go through a red light is illegal and destructive.  But what if an enemy painted the green light red and the red light green?  In one case you would move with legal confidence and no fear only to end up in wreckage. In the other you would not move thinking you were obeying but making no progress.

Man’s red paint over God’s green lights

God has given us many liberties and men have come along to take them away, making up rules that God never intended.  The Pharisees required all sorts of things that were not based on Scripture. They even attacked the Lord for healing on the Sabbath. We read where various brothers can freely participate in a church meeting, 1Cor. 14, but some restrict it to only the “clergy”.  We read how some seduced by demonic spirits forbid marriage and require abstaining from certain foods or meat of which God has given to us to freely enjoy in thanksgiving, 1Tim. 4. In many areas God says “go” and man says “no”.

Man’s green paint over God’s red lights

Aside from liberties given, God also has placed boundaries for our protection and to bear witness to His holiness.  These are God’s red lights and beyond these boundaries we must not go.  However men come along and reinterpret those boundaries and find a “legal” way to tell us they don’t mean what they say.  They say “go” when God says “no.”

God’s first red light was in Genesis 3 when He told Adam that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would bring death.  While “yes” can encourage us on, it is “no” that protects us from harm.  Satan came along and told Eve they would not die and they would be like God, knowing good and evil.  Essentially the serpent’s message was that in order to reach their highest potential, they needed to break out of God’s “unreasonable and rigid control.” God said no to it.  Satan said go for it. If anyone wants visible proof whose word was right just take a drive to a local cemetery.

Areas where the world has painted red green, and the “church” seems to follow

1.  Changing the sexes  “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,” Matt. 19:4.  “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God,” Deut. 22:5.

Today, transgenderism is being legalized and recognized under love and liberty.  It is even taught as a green light to little children to encourage them to make a choice God has already made for them.  When God makes a choice for us it is sin to choose differently.

2.  Fornication (sexual immorality)  “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: [a yes] but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. [a no]” Heb. 13:4.  “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body,” 1Cor. 6:18.  Sexual relations before marriage used to be shameful and punished by the world (one could be fired from work) for living in sin.  And the church excommunicated them. Now it’s a normal legal freedom by the world.  It’s now a green light to get to know a person intimately first before committing – like taking a test drive in a car before buying.

3.  Abortion  “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.  And you, be ye fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein,” Gen. 9: 6-7.  Today in most of the world, abortion (the terminating of fruit in the womb) is looked at as a free choice and is without legal penalty.  At one time it was a red light and illegal.  A woman’s womb was designed to be the cradle of human life.  Now it is used to be the casket.  Her choice over her body is at the moment she chooses whether or not to let a man in.  If she permits, then she relinquishes control of her womb.

4.  Divorce and Remarriage  “Wherefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder,” Matt. 19:6.  “So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man” Rom. 7:3.  At one time divorce was illegal in much of the world and scandalous in the church.  It’s now commonly accepted.  Sometimes the church shows about as much passion over divorce and remarriage as choosing coffee or tea to drink.  No one blinks or blushes.  It’s now the person’s happiness and not God’s holiness that’s the focus.  What was once red and preserved many marriages is now green and destroys families.  Because “walk out” is an option, “work it out” is surrendered too easily.

5.  Homosexuality “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination” Lev. 18: 22.  For many years this was illegal with laws against “sodomy.”  Now the red light has been painted green by science, psychology and politics.  What was once “queer” (unusual) is now normal with “pride”.  And disease, depression, and death have followed many, not to mention the eternal judgment of God for the unsaved, Rom. 1:26-28, 32.

6.  Equal Roles for men and women  “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” 1Tim. 2: 11-12.  “Teach the young women…To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands” Titus 2: 4-5.  Man was looked as the provider and the woman as protector of children in the home.  At one point in history a woman was not taken into the military for combat.  In the workplace she made less wages than a man who had a family.  In the church she was silent and never held a position of authority.  But now “equality” and religious liberalism has painted this green.  Could the collapse of families and schools be just a coincidence?   

7.  Not spanking children  “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”   “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell,” Pro. 22:15, 23:14.  Understanding children are born with a sinful nature with the bent to say no to authority to their own harm was countered by corrective spanking to put a healthy fear in them.  Psychology now labels it child abuse – as children grow up to abuse adults.

8.  Diversity  “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,” 2Cor. 6:14-17.  In the name of plurality and diversity, separation from “filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (religious evil - false gospels and gods, 2Cor. 7:1) is now viewed as unloving.  But to join together with the untrue loses the true.  Once ‘E Pluribus Unum’ (of many one) used to emphasize a unification of many nationalities but now it means a unity of sinful choices and religions that are to be tolerated without judging.  Yet this same diversity judges, as it is intolerant of others who still judge evil. Coexisting with evil is gloried in as diversity embraces evil and calls it love.  Would refusing to remove poisonous snakes from your home that would bite your baby be love? 

Standing alone – If twenty people were standing together in a straight line next to each other and all moved back but one – it’s the one who never moved that now looks weird and not unified.  “Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?” Mal. 2:17.

Yet for those that still fear Him the Lord is writing “a book of remembrance” and those in it will make up His special jewels in His coming kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Mal. 3:16,17, Rev. 11:15.

There the lights go back to their original colors.